Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House

Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House, tells the tale of Philip Martin, a minister and civil rights leader, a responsible husband and father, and a pillar of the black community in a small, rural Louisiana town who is forced to confront the sins of his past when the son he abandoned long before shows up in the town to seek revenge against the father he hates. The story is not only about the reckoning of an individual human being with the wreckage of his past, it is just as importantly the story of the division between black fathers and black sons, a theme which is crucial to an understanding of this and other works by Gaines. These aspects of the novel will be explored in the context of the painful beginning of the self-discovery of Martin in the novel.

This novel is unlike many other works by Gaines in that it focuses on a man largely responsible for his own downfall. He is a "victim" of his desire for power, for example, but that desire can be seen as a cultural heritage, a desire merely to seek freedom from powerlessness. Popkin writes of another of Gaines' works: "The result is a people's novel, one revealing unwritten history and depicting the examples of those who, in refusing to accept reality without question, rebelled against it" (Popkin 202). Perhaps Popkin's analysis applies to Martin as well, if we see his sins as a kind of rebellion, however self-destructive, against both the heritage of black oppression and his role as upstanding moral and social leader.

With respect to the black father/black son alienation, which might be seen as a toxic byproduct of this rebellion, Steinberg

writes: "In My Father's House, [Gaines] confronts the separation of black men from each other as well as the loss of mutual support" (Steinberg 77). In other words, Martin has deprived himself of the support of his son just as he has deprived his son of his support. In Steinberg, Gaines himself spells out this perspective...

Page 1 of 16 Next >

More on Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:21, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691692.html